“I’ve a friend, in a Russian prison. When I killed Ramsey, I killed my friend.”
He coughed, politely.
“John Spencer is now in Helsinki. He shall be in a much safer place by week’s end.”
“You know Jack?”
“Has he told you of Iceland?”
“A little.”
“Suffice it to say I know him very well. We were there together. The relationship continues.”
“How did you get him out? The Soviets were very emphatic about what I had to do to free him.”
“They are always so emphatic. They have such bad manners. I have a friend, perhaps I should say counterpart, among their embassy staff in Washington. We both function as a convenient short cut for each other’s side. He explained General Badim’s predicament. I solved it for him. I had the chief Washington correspondent, and spy, for Tass, arrested for espionage. Badim immediately agreed to an exchange.” He touched her hand. “Do not misunderstand Badim. Many Westerners love him because he is an intellectual, but he is the quintessential Bolshevik.”
They thumped over the tiny wooden drawbridge. There were tiny lights off by the horizon to the southwest, some stars, some boats.
“But I think Badim trusts me, and that he is glad to be rid of Spencer, and of you. If you were to go into Russia again, he’d have to kill you at once. But outside, I think he’ll leave you alone. If you keep quiet.”
“I’ve no interest in interviews.”
He smiled, and took a quick sip of the brandy himself.
“Miss Chase, would you be interested in going into Russia again?”
She looked at him as though at someone gone mad.
“I’m joking, in a way, but there’s something you should know; something I believe you should want to know. Do you remember getting a notice of a registered letter?”
“Yes. At the Greenwich post office. I didn’t dare pick it up. How do you know about that?”
The smile this time was fainter. He reached over the front seat and pulled up a briefcase. Setting it on his lap, he fingered the combination deftly in the dark, then sprung the catches.
“We’re able to make … certain arrangements. This should have come to your attention weeks ago. Events, and all those interesting personalities, intervened. It could have been months before you were finally able to lay hands on this; possibly years. I thought you should have it now. It’s germane.”
She ripped open the thick envelope, then stopped.
“I’m supposed to sign for this.”
He coughed. “You did.”
A truck roared by them in the opposite lane. He handed her a small penlight.
The stationery was from a major law firm she recognized as being in the same building as her stepfather’s. There were three pages of single-spaced letter, with a bulky sheaf of photocopied legal documents affixed beyond.
For all its length, the letter was much to the point. The big stone house and hilltop estate off Pommel Ridge Road in Westchester belonging to the late Grand Duke Suvorov had been deeded to her in secret trust in the year 1957. When the grand duke had died in late December of the previous year, some Romanovs in New York had contested the deed, but the probate judge in Westchester had held for her, presuming the ability of the courts to locate her, or one of her heirs.
She had no heirs, just those glimpsed in Ramsey’s imagination, or perhaps Jack Spencer’s.
“He was a grand duke, then? He was genuine?”
“Oh yes, the youngest and I think last recipient of a general’s promotion in the Imperial army.”
“And my grandmother knew him.”
“Oh yes. Very much so.”
“Then she might have been what she said.”
“I don’t know what she said; I can’t say.”
“She said she was a cousin to the czars.”
“That I can’t say, yes or no. But the grand duke was most definitely the cousin of Nicholas Romanov. He worked with us for many years.”
The driver had his window opened slightly. As they swept down into a depression between hedges, she caught a heavy scent of flowers.
“Why did he give me his house? Just because he and my grandmother were friends, distant relatives?” All this talk of Russians was bringing music back to her, “Evening Bells,” even now at the prelude to dawn.
“When you more closely examine the affixed legal papers, you will find it all spelled out, rather frankly. I mean to be very polite, Miss Chase, but let me say it. Your mother, Chloe, was an illegitimate child. She was not the daughter of Elwood Hoops. She was the daughter of Mathilde Iovashchenko and General Suvorov. Miss Chase, you are the duke’s granddaughter. That is why you have his house.”
She held the flask, trembling, then drank. She closed her eyes, sinking back against the seat. The coldness was draining from her nervous system—warmth, fatigue, and sleepiness flowing in behind it.
“The house does me no good.”
“Not for a while.”
She thought of Spencer in Helsinki, in a wood-paneled hotel room, under the protection of CIA agents, under guard.
She cranked down her own window as they reached the south coast by the Sonesta Beach Hotel, moonlight waves among the rocks.
“You said you would put me on a plane today. Mr. Laidlaw, I’ve no place to go. I’ve no place left to go.”
“Oh no, Miss Chase. You shall always have a place to go. For the rest of your life.”
“Why? What do you mean?”
“Miss Chase. Now you are one of us.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My grandmother Caroline, whose father was a czarist civil servant, came to the United States with her family from Poland in 1907, finding sanctuary from the troubles that began with the uprising outside the Winter Palace in 1905 and culminated in the permanent establishment of Bolshevik tyranny.
When I was a child, she told me many stories of her early life in the Russian Empire. I still recall vividly her recounting a ride with her father in a sleigh on a street in St. Petersburg as a troop of scarlet-coated Cossacks, singing, rode along a parallel route, silhouetted against the Russian winter sunset.
Those stories, long forgotten, recently remembered, were what led to this book. As I should have made better known to her while she was alive, I am much grateful to her for that, as I am grateful that I have belatedly learned to honor my Polish and Russian heritage as much as I have the English and Prussian.
James O. Jackson, a friend, colleague, and veteran foreign correspondent with few rivals in his understanding of the Soviet state, provided invaluable advice and expertise. Tom Dunne, Dianne Rowe, Deborah Daly, and Pam Dorman of St. Martin’s provided what they always do, the best.
I am also grateful for the good counsel of Dominick Abel, Jack Fuller, and a dear friend and wonderful artist, Ellen Morgan Williams.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1984 by Michael Kilian
Cover design by Mauricio Díaz
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1921-7
This 2015 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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MICHAEL KILIAN
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Blood of the Czars Page 34
